COLUMN: Aaron’s Backstage Pass: NES Remix Wii U Review

Some of my greatest childhood memories were with my Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The first time I saw an NES was at a friend’s house, and he had just gotten one, and it came with “Super Mario Brothers,” “Duck Hunt” and “Gyromite.” After playing about five minutes of “Super Mario Bros.,” I knew I had to have a NES, and I did get a one for my birthday.

As soon as I would get home from school, I would do my homework, (yes, you read that correctly) and then I would get to play NES.

It has been years since I’ve played games like the original “Super Mario Bros.” and “The Legend of Zelda,” but thanks to Nintendo and the Nintendo eShop, you can download many of the classic NES games on the Nintendo Wii, Wii U or 3DS.

Nintendo released one of the most amazing games for the Wii U in my opinion, called “NES Remix.” I was sent a review code to try it, and I was blown away.

“In NES Remix,” classic Nintendo games like “The Legend of Zelda,” “Donkey Kong,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “Excitebike,” and “Donkey Kong Jr.,” are all featured in a different style of game play.

Each game has a timed challenge that you must complete in order to move onto the next level. For example, there is a challenge in “Super Mario Bros.,” where you have to kill seven enemies while you are invincible. The challenges can be as easy as dropping a fruit on an enemy in “Donkey Kong Jr.” or as hard as completing “Donkey Kong” in the dark with just a spot light on you.

Some of challenges are really short and will only take seconds to complete. At first I was worried that I would fly though “NES Remix” very quickly, but that’s not the case at all. Sometimes there are multiple challenges that you may have to do in a game to move onto the next one. For example, in “Mario Bros.” the first challenge is to flip an enemy over by punching it from below, then in the next challenge you will have to kick three enemies that are on their back. You start out right next to them and then you just have to walk by them, then the last challenge you have to defeat all of the enemies.

As I mentioned earlier, you are timed, and your goal is to try and complete each challenge as quickly as you can.

At the end of each challenge, you are scored by how fast you completed the level and if you didn’t die. You will get three stars, and if you completed the challenge quickly enough, the stars will have a rainbow boarder, which looks pretty cool. If you get rainbow stars in every challenge, something special will unlock.

You will also receive points called “bits,” and you get these by clearing the level. The more you play, the more bits you get, and if you get enough, you will unlock stamps that can be used in the Miiverse. You can post messages on each level that other players can see.

You can also unlock other games when you get a certain amount of stars such as “The Legend of Zelda,” “Golf,” and “Pinball” to name a few. I don’t want to spoil all of the unlockables.

Another really cool feature is that if you are not sure how to play a game, you can watch a demo of the game. It will show you what buttons you need to push to control the character and the features of the game. I thought that this was very helpful, and I know that people who have not played some of these classic Nintendo games before will really appreciate it.

Overall, I really enjoyed Nintendo’s “NES Remix” for the Wii U a lot. This is one of the greatest games that I have downloaded from the eShop. The graphics look great and are exactly how I remembered them for each game. I know fans of the classic NES games will really enjoy re-playing all these games again. The challenges are great and make “NES Remix” a lot of fun. I would highly recommend that you check out “NES Remix.” I think that you will agree with me, that “NES Remix” is a must have for any Nintendo fan.